These are the words which mark a trial and which testify, if necessary still, to the violence of the circumstances in which George Floyd lost his life.
He "called for help in his last breath" before dying below the knee of Derek Chauvin, the prosecutor said Monday in his indictment against the police officer accused of killing the African-American forties on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis .
"George Floyd begged until he couldn't speak," Steve Schleicher told the jury.
"It just needed a little compassion, and no one showed any that day," added the prosecutor.
Unsurprisingly, the defense for its part asked for the acquittal of Derek Chauvin, claiming that the prosecution had not provided irrefutable proof of his guilt.
The prosecution "has failed to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt and Derek Chauvin must therefore be found not guilty," said Eric Nelson after nearly three hours of argument.
The jurors then retired to a hotel to deliberate on this sensitive case.
They will inevitably have to render a unanimous verdict on each of the three charges, otherwise the trial will be declared “void”.
The deliberation could take several days
And there is complete uncertainty about the time that the jurors will need to eventually come to an agreement. "You are masters of time," the judge reminded them. It could be an hour, a week, or even more. It's up to you. One hour, given the importance of the case, it seems unlikely. "
The 45-year-old white police officer is on trial for murder, manslaughter and intentional violence resulting in the death of George Floyd, who had been arraigned for a minor offense. For more than nine minutes, he had kept one knee on the neck of the forty-something who was lying on his stomach, his hands cuffed behind his back. "He called for help in his last breath but the officer did not help, the accused stayed on him," recalled the prosecutor, claiming that the officer had broken the Minneapolis police code by use of force.
“George Floyd wasn't a threat to anyone, he wasn't trying to hurt anyone,” he said.
He also lambasted the inaction of the policeman, who did nothing to revive George Floyd.
"As first aid, you have to do a cardiac massage, he did not do it when he was trained in this," said the prosecutor.
"The accused is not tried because he is a police officer" but "he is judged for what he did", stressed Steve Schleicher, believing that Derek Chauvin had "betrayed his badge".
A healthy person "would have died"
The trial is being held in a climate of great tension, after the recent death of a young black man during a traffic stop near Minneapolis.
"It was a murder, the accused is guilty of all three counts and there is no excuse," said the prosecutor at the conclusion of his indictment, which lasted more than an hour and a half.
For the prosecution, who called nearly 40 witnesses to the bar, it was the police officer who killed George Floyd, who "could not breathe".
He died of "lack of oxygen" caused by Derek Chauvin's pressure on his neck and back, several doctors said.
The African American had heart problems but even a healthy person "would have died from what Mr. Floyd suffered," said pulmonologist Martin Tobin.
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For David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, prosecutors "did a very good job" to show that the police officer had not acted "in a reasonable manner".
Derek Chauvin's lawyer, Eric Nelson, will try to sow doubt in the minds of the jury, which must render a unanimous verdict on each of the three charges.
Police convictions for murder are very rare, with jurors tending to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Minneapolis under very high tension
According to Eric Nelson, George Floyd died of a heart attack due to heart problems, aggravated by the consumption of fentanyl, an opioid, and methamphetamine, a stimulant, and by inhaling exhaust fumes while he was lying on the ground.
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According to the defense, the officer used an authorized procedure to restrain a struggling individual and hold him down.
It also evokes a "hostile crowd" which represented a "threat" and would have diverted the attention of the police officer from the fate of George Floyd.
Derek Chauvin, he refused to explain, using the right of any accused in the United States not to give testimony likely to incriminate him.
If the jury cannot agree on all of the charges, the trial will be declared “void”.
Any other scenario than a conviction worries the local authorities.
The tension is very strong in the city, which had already set ablaze after the death of George Floyd. The businesses are barricaded behind wooden plaques, and the National Guard patrols the streets. The recent death of Daunte Wright, a young African-American who was killed by a white policewoman during an ordinary traffic stop in the suburbs of Minneapolis, has only increased this tension. "We are preparing for the worst," said Janay Clanton, a resident of Minneapolis. “Everything will explode,” even predicted the sexagenarian, if Derek Chauvin is not found guilty. The outcome of the trial will also have an impact on that of three other agents who are to be tried in August for "complicity in murder".
